Recent Tasting Notes

Boston Tea continues to impress with its reliable and adequate line of bagged teas. Quick, unpretentious, easy steepers, all of them. This EB is bright and crisp and brassy; not much going on in the bass line, but that makes stopping for milk unnecessary. A good morning grab-n-go.

Half a tumbler left. I shall revel in its adaquacity. (Thank you, News Radio, for one of my favorite unwords ever.)

Had the bagged version this morning: smooth, strong, pleasant, and not finicky. Quite welcome during these hectic days as we prepare for what my mom would have called her “homegoing.” Amazing, the number of bizarre and random errands that become necessary at a time like this. My Emily Dickinson is not letter perfect, so apologies; but she had it spot on:

The bustle in a housethe morning after deathis the solemnest activityenacted upon earth.The sweeping up the heartand putting love awaywe shall not want to use againuntil Eternity.

We all have reasons for selecting our teas—more often than not, my picks are based on available time, weather, and emotional state as much as for the tea itself. Conditions this morning (running late, rain for the umpteenth day in a row, ugh-I-don’t-want-to-go-to-work) called for something to break up the rut, but no-fuss.

Boston Teas are consistently good and hard to ruin. This ginger peach definitely leads with the ginger—very warming on the tongue; based on past experience, the peach shows up better when it’s iced. Makes the eyes open in a slightly more creative manner than the heavy black unleaded I generally rely on.

Unexpected 1 a.m. illness prior to a 6 a.m. flight caused me to cancel travel plans a couple days ago, so I’ve been muddling through a writers’ conference by phone. The upside: participation in jammies, sleeping in my own bed, and plenty of good tea as long as I can make it quietly and one-handed while coddling my cel in the other.

Ginger Peach was the afternoon brew; fit the bill perfectly, although the bag is one of those funny ones where you have to pull out the tag to elongate the string (had to do that with my teeth). The ginger has a nice warming bite to it and the peach isn’t perfumey or artificial.

Well…‘tis the season; little warm for a hot cuppa anything, so there’s been a quart of this chilling in the fridge since Sunday (bags removed). Letting it set actually wasn’t a bad call; it’s the rich, thick peachy taste of a jar of preserves now.

Another treasure from my Christmas tea chest. I’m at a loss to link this to a specific tea description or image because the Boston Tea website doesn’t specifically show it…although they have a Ginger/Peach/Apricot and a Bentley’s Ginger peach. Two brandings by the same supplier?

At any rate, it is gingery, peachy, and pleasant, leaning more to the peachy side. Boston Tea products are consistently good, whether bagged or loose.

To paraphrase my beloved Dr. Cooper, there is not enough chamomile tea in the world to quell the chaos in my life. But this is a nice, quick, baggie tea that doesn’t require hard work or deep thought. Thats very welcome again this week. Both honey and lemon taste pleasantly natural.

For someone who doesn’t much do honey in tea, this nook in my cherry wood tea chest is emptying out fast! It’s gentle, nicely balanced, a no-brain steeper. Not nearly as syrupy cloying as the Ludens cough drops we’d eat full boxes of during the sermon on Sundays, but brings back that sensory memory.

This is the closest match on the Boston Tea website I could find—what I’m sipping this evening was a bagged version that came in a rich, dark-cherry tea chest from my sweet husband. (Despite circumstances, we managed to squeeze in a little Christmas today.)

The honey and chamomile outweigh the lemon in this combo, but it is gentle on a raw throat and a dull headache. And simple. Simple is good.

I’m with you on the dull headache, & a slight scratchy throat. The 2nd church I played at was filled with people, several of whom had the sniffles. Keeping my fingers crossed, & breaking out the elderberry.

teabag sipdown! which totally brings me down to 205…mwahahahaha this is another one from CHAroma! I wish i could say this was a tasty bagged chai but i think i’m suffering from intense dislike of cloves at the moment since that’s all i felt like i was tasting. Oh well, they can’t all be winners!

teabag sipdown! (214) another one from the lovely CHAroma! This is actually a pretty darn tasty teabag :) I wish i had another bag to try this as a cold brew since hot it’s got a particularly decent mango flavour without having to be a herbal/fruit blend.

teabag sidpdown! no. just no. so while there are few people out there who think that i’m gradually going to cover over to the dark side and find love and happiness in an early grey – this is a tea to remind me of why i hate earl greys lol Thanks for the taste CHAroma! While i dislike this a lot (floral much?!?) i still am happy to cross another one off my list :)

Haha no way! It’s good to know where my limits are with EG’s. even if I’d hated every single tea you sent, which I didn’t, it still would be a success to me. I love sharing tea and finding out what I like and don’t like :)

Teabagsipdown! Thank you for sending this one my way CHAroma! This one smelled pretty darn good. I just wish the flavour was a little stronger. I find with this one that the flavour is mostly in the tail end of the sip. However, the base of this one is pretty nice with no astringency. Overall a pretty good tea bag for those times when those are just the easiest :)

Thanks CHAroma! Looking forward to trying some of the black bagged teas you sent now that I’m through these ones :) I don’t find that the green tea really adds anything to this one. For all intents and purposes it might as well just be a cup of mint or something. Not sure…it’s just nothing special :)

Tea bag sip down! (I’m so nowhere even sort of close to 200 anymore…and I was soooo close). So I don’t want to hear anything from any of you but I LIKE this one lol apparently a green earl grey isn’t too bad a tea to me. Much prefer it to some of the black earl greys that I’ve had. Haha. So thank you CHAroma! The bergamot is a little more mellow or something, which is creating a not to bad cup of tea. :)

Teabagsipdown! Tank you CHAroma! I have to say that this one got a good sniff after being brewed and then after a quick sip, it may have started its journey down the drain. In part because I dislike jasmine it also because this doesn’t smell a lot like jasmine..just a random floral scent. Th taste wasn’t much better. My other half said it smelled like aunt jemima’s underwear…whatever that means lol